Arab Christians wonder about future after protests

Thousands of Coptic Christians marched in Cairo on Sunday to call for the amendment of Egypt’s Constitution to establish a secular state. The protestors carried pictures of Christians killed by the police or members of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party during the 18 days of the pro-democracy protests.
Egypt’s Coptic minority, which makes up 10% of the country, claim the committee appointed by the army to amend certain articles of the Constitution under-represents the country’s Christian community. The committee does, however, include representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, long banned in the country.
There are fears the Muslim Brotherhood will try to impose an Islamic state in Egypt.
Father David-Maria Jaeger, OFM, a Church expert on the Middle East, says such fears may be justified.
“There is not anywhere, perhaps, a majority of citizens who want precisely the kind of theocratic state that the Muslim Brotherhood or similar organizations are working for,” he told Vatican Radio. But he says he does not “think the majority of Iranians in 1979 when they brought down the Shah wanted an Islamic state. What the Khomeini forces were able to do was ride the crest of that wave and use it for their purposes.”
Father Jaeger says for this not to happen in Egypt is for secular and democratic Islamic movements to organize themselves.
“If there is no alternative vision to that of the Islamists, then the Islamists are left to be the only ones proposing a coherent programme,” he said.
Listen to the full interview by Charles Collins with Father David-Maria Jaeger, OFM: